


I Would Just Cut the Wire

by FawnoftheWoods



Series: Not Alone Anymore [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, No death!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 12:55:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15143519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FawnoftheWoods/pseuds/FawnoftheWoods
Summary: Time is running out on the bomb.  The evacuation won't be done in time.  Tony must disarm that bomb.  Sometimes there is no way out.Can Stand Alone





	I Would Just Cut the Wire

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: way depressing, at least for me. I failed my PhD Qualifiers and I needed to vent. Kid Tony is how I felt.

Tony had been here before.  Fuck it all, he’d been here a lot!  He threw the clippers down and grabbed the pliers.

1:06

Opening the case had been simple.  He automatically mapped the wiring the second he saw it.  There is where the problem happened.

1:02

One part of his mind always functioned on something else.  Tony didn’t know how to focus on something with all his processing power.  In this case, the most pertinent thought stream calculated the time needed to disarm the device.  Even as he started the process, a voice told him that he needed 11 more seconds than he had.

0:58

Howard gave him tasks like this.  Usually, his father was drunk, but Tony tried them anyway.  Howard knew how to reward success. He also could punish failure.

0:54

Tony remembered a particular year.  His birthday was a few days away and it was the year he graduated from high school.  They happened on the same day that year. For days, Tony had gathered courage to request his father’s presence at the celebration, if not the actual graduation.  When he finally asked, Howard gave him a goal.

0:49

“Build a fully functioning portable calculator.”  It sounded so simple a sentence. But, Tony was excited.  Howard promised if it was delivered by his birthday, the man would attend the party.  

0:45

Tony drew up the circuit plans in 28 hours.  He’d skipped a friend’s party and a meal with his mother, but the designs were complete.  He pushed to finish building the prototype. The party started in 36 hours.

0:40

The basic circuit came together easily.  He’d made circuits before. The screen required some creativity, but with 8 hours left before the party, Tony started testing the device.

0:36

The code was less cooperative than the circuitry.  Tony was better at hardware. Jarvis interrupted him three times to get ready for the party.  Eventually, Ana Jarvis even came to coax Tony into preparations, but Tony sent them both away.

0:32

Tony walked out his bedroom door with a completed device, perfect working order.  It would require sprucing up before becoming an actual product, but it was fully functional and very portable.  He immediately set out for his father’s office.

0:28

Tony’s mind always worked multiple problems and in this case it was a blessing.  The bomb's designer had doubled up on a circuit. It could cut his disarming time down by 9 seconds.  He’d heard his team acknowledge that the hospital evacuation remained incomplete. JARVIS kept them informed on the timer’s progress, leaving his creator to his work.

0:23

That birthday, he had worked 64 hours with only 6 hours of sleep.  He had made the device. He had hit all requirements, except one.

0:21

Steve called to him to leave the bomb, but the cancer ward remained half-occupied.  Tony refused to go anywhere. He found another doubled circuit, pushing himself faster to meet the time deadline.  He couldn’t fail this time.

0:16

Tony’s party that day ended 5 minutes before he knocked on his father’s door.  Tony never made an appearance. Neither did Howard.

0:11

Tony wrapped his fingers around the last wire and clipped it.  The timer froze reading nine seconds. He’d made it this time. 

Perhaps on the grand scheme of things a hospital of people didn’t compare to a child’s celebration.  What person would dare measure a celebration of years and accomplishment against human lives? Tony watched as his team cleared out the remaining patients and started clean up.

Howard had taught him a valuable lesson that day.  No one, but no one showed you the way out. There isn’t someone there with the answer.  So if you don’t find it for yourself, you won’t find it.

Stark Industries needs a CEO, Tony steps up.  He hates meetings, Economic bores him to tears and the publicity shoots to nightmarish, but no one else will, so he does.  SI needs new tech, to make more money. Tony sets down his robots and agricultural studies to create smarter ways for the military to kill and subdue.  There is no one to talk to, because Rhodey stayed in the air force and away and no one else wants the lifestyle without acting like vultures. TOny goes out to get drunk and find companionship for a few hours at a time.  Tony is held in a terrorist encampment, dying. So he re-invents the Arc technology and learns a lesson about consequences. Tony is still dying, so he find a fucking puzzle his fucking father left behind based on clues in 30 year old reels kept from him by a superspy who knew his father better than Tony ever could.

He learned the lesson that saved everything he held dear.  When someone says that sometimes there isn’t a way out, they mean they’ve stopped looking for one.  It means you’ve failed. It always meant that.

Tony knew that, because his father had left 3 hours before that party began

**Author's Note:**

> So hope you liked it. SOrry for the depressing things, I needed an outlet for my own emotions. Hope you read more of the series, cuz the rest is not as down ;)


End file.
